DS hurt a boy in his school

[BoscoIsMyLover]

I actually feel ill posting this. A few behaviour issues with DS 5, nothing major, not concentrating, siting down etc. However, he has been excellent the last few days so I was surprised to receive a call from his teacher saying that another mother had approached her.

It turns out that yesterday, my DS pulled this boy approx a year younger by the arm and said something like"if I do this to your arm will you laugh or will you cry?" Now the teacher wasnt aware of the issue, and said this boy aproached her for something else and no mention of this incident was made. However, the child came to school with a bandage on his wrist/arm, the parents thought it might be strained. The child identified my son and said it wasnt the first time that he did it. At least once before. It turns out its not strained just sore.

Now the teacher says she cannot confirm any of this, the boys like to roughhouse, but this boy doesnt so it could have been hourse play out of hand. However, I dont want to be the mother who is like "oh it cant be my child, he would never do such a thing.... The teacher wanted to tell me, whats my next step? Is this deliberate? Is he a bully now? Is this our school life? That other parent must hate us,

Oh and sorry for rambling!

What has your son said about it?

You will get things like that through all his school time. You just need to sit with him and tell him off for hurting the other child, make him do an "I'm sorry" card for the child which will be helpful to appease the mother. And make him promise he will be more careful in the future. end of.

Sometimes your child hurt another one (even accidentally), some other times he will get hurt. I have noticed that children forget about these problems much faster than parents do.

Don't be surprised if they become best friends next week ... they often do...

They should not have approached you directly; you were not there, it's happening in school time the school needs to supervise better. You can only ask your boy to be more careful (or apologise?, if guilt can be established), school has to make sure your boy is nicer.

If it makes you feel any better, reception DS once shoved another boy's head into a radiator (other boy had destroyed DS's lego construction). Luckily other mum shrugged it off, they became mates later.

Of course they should have approched her. Its the parents job to raise the child and teach right from wrong. Parents raise children not teachers. I would want to know what my child had done so I could talk to him about it. So I could teach him right from wrong. Yes the school needs to watch behaviour but children do silly things some times. they just need telling why what they did was not acceptable.
I fully agree with the card idea mentioned by memysonandI

Ah, sorry, misread that, thought the parents had approached OP but not the teacher (at all). oops!

The part I worry about is... who started this game? Was it OP's child, or another, or even the victim himself? Did victim encourage such mild threat behaviour until it crossed an unacceptable line? That's where I think school has to handle things as much as possible.

Hi all, thanks so much for your replies. I spoke to DS who was very apologetic and upset, he said they were playing a pulling game, started by someone else where you pull someone by the arm around and around. He doesn't remember ehat he said when he did it. This child didn't want to play and mine just carried on.

I've written to the teacher because I won't be dropping DS to school outlinging, punishment, consequenses that we have put in place. I also had him make the apology card. I don't think any of it is intentional but then I would say that wouldn't I? Is there anything else we should be doing?

You have dealt with it- your next job is to relaaaax. It doesn't mean he will grow up into the school bully/wife beater/collector of ASBOs: he made a mistake and now he knows it.

Ds' school were very good about helping children to identify a) unsuitable rough play b) situations in which somebody was being upset or hurt- and making it clear that every child had a duty to tell an adult if that happened. But you can do that at home, talk to your ds about how to tell if someone isn't happy and what to do.

I think you have done all you can tbh.

My ds1 was bullied for 3 years at his last school by one particular boy....his mother was in TOTAL denial (despite being called into school pretty much weekly from nursery onwards because of his behaviour) and in the end I had to write a letter to the BOfG (to which I received no reply).

I removed my son from the school.

You dont sound like that mother to me.

I agree. It happened, you've dealt with it. Lovely that your little boy is so sorry. They will get over it.

For future reference I find that enclosing a pack of chocolate buttons in the sorry card helps a lot. The parents appreciate the card, the child tends to remember and appreciate the buttons more